30 December 2010

Strawberry Love

A creation with my favorite fruit
Just for fun :)

26 November 2010

Hogwarts Gingerbread Castle

 I just made this for the SPS Habitat for Humanity Gingerbread Cottage Competition 2010.
 Lots of gingerbread...
 Lots of fondant...
Lots and lots of sugar...
Meets Harry Potter Nerd























07 April 2010

Happy Spring!

My first Hummingbird Cake!
I've been wanting to do this recipe for ages, and finally decided to go for it for a very special person born on the first day of spring. It is a banana-pineapple-coconut-pecan cake with cream cheese frosting.
And no, those are not fungi growing on top, as my roommate supposed, but actually homemade dried pineapple slices!  Really elegant and really quite easy. Just trim a pineapple and dig out the prickly parts, slice it thin and bake on a parchment paper lined pan for about a half hour at 225 F and flip over for another half hour. It depends on the thickness, mine took closer to an hour per side, but well worth it.
6" cake double layered, I really like making this size of cake. I think part of it is that I don't like to surprise people with a big 10"er because that's far too much cake without a party, 6" is still more than enough. But mainly, I think cakes are cute at this size. I'm thinking about cutting the layers in half next time and making it four layers, probably with a red velvet for Josh's birthday. Shh... he doesn't read this :)
With the left-over batter I made cupcakes, which decidedly divine by all who got a taste.

07 February 2010

Cake Monochrome!

Alright, so cake was in order, and so cake has been made.
Inside it is a chocolate chip banana cake, and what you see covering it is a light layer of cream cheese frosting, all home made of course :)
 
(Just in case of amnesia, these are the same roses and leaves I created yesterday with the last post. Made of white chocolate "fondant" - not really fondant at all, and quite tasty too!)

One more close up for good measure.
(Thank you for the cake plate Amy! It's so handy for all these pretty pictures.) 
 
Here's a look inside!

06 February 2010

Royal Cupcakes

I finally executed my idea to rubber stamp fondant designs with food coloring! Check em' out!
Here are some of the trial runs... not so pretty.
Then I realized I could also do calligraphy on them, so I busted out my pens!
Here are my two favorite of the bunch:
And of course, since I had the fondant out, I had to play with roses again. Looks like I'm getting better at it!
Now if I just had the ingredients to make cakes and cupcakes for these beautiful creations... Time to make more cake.

01 February 2010

Faerie Cakes

 
Gold velvet with Swiss butter cream frosting and star sprinkles! I served these to my brother and his roommates when they visited last weekend on their way to the Bad Faerie Ball.

30 January 2010

Post Christmas Cookies

 Ok, it's almost February, so I thought it might be time to post the Christmas cookies I made over a month ago.
These striped "ice box" cookies were really fun. Stacking the dough and refreezing it over and over was kind of a pain, but they turned out pretty cool.

Chai Shortbread - MMmmmmm! These were a delicious twist on a Christmas standard. Cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and black pepper + butter, sugar and flour = chailiciousness!
Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of my coconut macaroons before they were all gone, but those of you who got them are lucky souls indeed!